Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:47:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2889222 bytes, checksum: 8230904036e0af5a059d1007bb898f06 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Serious games are computer games with serious purposes, such as: training, learning, valuation etc. These games connect the fun of common videogames with features like decision making, assessment systems and educational planning in order to create an engaging learning environment. So these aspects create endless possibilities of use in those games and attract attention from other areas of knowledge. Therefore, the design process becomes increasingly complex and involves multidisciplinary teams. This document presents an interdisciplinary study conducted to define an approach based on communication for the development of a serious game for dentistry, specifically oral health in babies. Thus, in this work presents a stage before the design of the serious games. The focus was to evaluate what is the best approach to be applied to the script of the game in order to define the good way to present the content. In this paper, the term communication approach joins features such as: game play, game design, interaction, narrative, story genre and script. In this project, it was necessary to evaluate which communication approach is appropriate in a serious game aimed at mothers. We developed two prototypes to test different communication approaches. The game's audience, initially the mothers, who are using tests that define the most appropriate for them by offering a poll. After interact with approaches, the mothers answered a form. The data were analyzed through absolute and percentage values. Finally we decided adopt a Playful Approach, because the mothers felt more encouraged to finalize this application compare to Formal Approach. The serious game was developed and a new assessment was conducted to investigate mother s opinions. In this new stage of testing, some changes in behavior were seen in the audience, for example, the increase in the number of mothers who said they had some computer knowledge. However, even when dealing with a more demanding audience, the results remained positive. Data were analyzed descriptively by absolute values and percentages. It was found that 87% of mothers who interacted with the game learned some new knowledge and 53% were able to earn (successfully complete) the game. / Os serious games ganham espaço dia a dia nas mais variadas ciências. Neste contexto destacam-se as ferramentas na Odontologia. Para avaliar as perspectivas deste grupo de jogos, realizou-se o levantamento e análise das aplicações presentes na literatura e no mercado de jogos. Observamos, a partir do estudo realizado, que os conceitos básicos relacionados à saúde e higiene bucal predominam como temática dos serious games para Odontologia, bem como as crianças são o público-alvo principal destes jogos. Concluímos que existi uma carência na exploração da temática saúde bucal em bebês, visto que não foram encontrados nas bases de dados pesquisados serious games abordando tal temática. Além disso, observamos que não há jogos voltados para um público-alvo formado por mães. Por isso, este projeto se utilizou da metodologia de planejamento baseada na avaliação da Abordagem de Comunicação (AC) junto ao público-alvo. As ACs descrevem um conjunto de características importantes para a comunicação do jogo com o público-alvo. Esta análise deu subsídios necessários para o desenvolvimento do serious game baseado na AC Lúdica. A aplicação foi desenvolvida e uma nova avaliação foi realizada para investigar a opinião das mães diante do jogo concluído. Nesta nova fase de testes, algumas mudanças de comportamento foram percebidas no público-alvo como, por exemplo, uma maior informatização das mães. Contudo, mesmo lidando com um público-alvo mais exigente, os resultados continuaram sendo positivos. Os dados foram analisados descritivamente mediante valores absolutos e percentuais. Constatamos que 87% das mães que interagiram com o jogo aprenderam algum conhecimento novo e 53% delas conseguiram ganhar (concluir com êxito) o jogo.

Games in general and computer games in particular have now become a mainstream activity for young people in the industrialized nations. Sadly, people’s interaction with computer artifacts and games are mainly still limited to the visual and auditive modalities. This constrains the richness of our interaction with those artifacts, it constrains the possibilities of using those artifacts to communicate and build relations with others, and it excludes some people from using them at all. This thesis answers the questions of whether it’s possible to use haptics as a single modality for conveying information in computer games, if it’s possible to translate the standard interfaces of existing computer games into haptic interfaces, and if it can be accomplished with the technology used in the gamepads of current generation game consoles. It also contains a theoretical foundation for using haptics in game design and a new design method for analyzing the requirements of computer game interface modalities. A computer game prototype called Sightlence was developed in order to answer these questions. The prototype was developed in four iterative cycles of design, development, and evaluative play sessions. Four groups of people participated in the play sessions: graduate students, and teachers, specializing in games; people who are deafblind; people from the general population; and pupils from a national special needs school in Sweden for children with deafness or impaired hearing combined with severe learning disabilities, or congenital deafblindness. The prototypes were tested with usability techniques for measuring performance and learnability. The usability tests showed that Sightlence can be successfully learned by people from the general population while the pupils with cognitive development disorders from the special needs school would need additional support in the game in order to learn to handle the increased abstraction caused by the haptic interface. The thesis ends with discussion of the designed and developed artifact Sightlence. The discussion touches on the design process, the usability testing, and possible future research and development relevant for making haptics a fruitful tool and medium for designers and people.

The aim of this study was to address a knowledge gap by conducting a literature review on gaming disorder, specifically focusing on its social problems and challenges it presents in the field of social work. The specific objectives of this study were to identify risk factors associated with gaming disorder, explore the potential social problems arising from gaming disorder and their impact on individuals, examine the treatment approaches for gaming disorder and identify the challenges faced by social workers when working with individuals affected by gaming disorder. The theories used were social interactionism, Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and social labeling theory. Results showed that mental health problems, social isolation, self-neglect as well as disruptions in social relationships, education and work were associated with gaming disorder. Several risk factors were identified, such as age, gender, poor parental attachment, lack of real-life friendships and loneliness. Additionally, challenges in the field of social work arise from limited research and knowledge, as well as the ease with which risk factors can be masked by individuals. The findings suggest that there is no singular treatment approach for gaming disorder, instead, it is important for social workers to understand problematic gaming within a broader context of life challenges. The emphasis should not be placed solely on eliminating gaming, but rather on addressing various aspects of the individual’s life to achieve a healthy balance and a purposeful existence.

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<p dir="ltr">Since the Electronic Software Association (ESA) began reporting data for the video game industry in 2002, women have represented nearly half of the game playing population. However, despite this stable statistic, the industry’s ideal “Gamer” is consistently depicted as a young, white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied male, and the games industry frequently targets this idealized identity through advertising and game design. This has resulted in a culture that is notably toxic towards women and marginalized players, built on an assumption of meritocracy within games—or the expectation that every player begins each game with the same advantages, disadvantages, and skills as every other player. While the construction of gamer identity has received extensive scholarly attention, gaming peripherals—such as video game controllers—are either minimized or left entirely out of the conversation. This dissertation, informed by feminist methodologies in technical communication and game studies, uses a mixed-methods approach involving archival research, visual analysis, surveys, and interviews to understand the intersections of video game controllers and gamer identity. Using Microsoft’s Xbox as a case study, the findings demonstrate how a dominant narrative has controlled controller design decisions through iterative processes. This has resulted in controllers that are more uncomfortable, more unusable, and more frustrating for and viewed more negatively by women and marginalized players. For each controller iteration, women and marginalized participants rated controllers significantly lower. Though the total improvement score (TIS) from first iteration to current iteration were similar between women and marginalized participants and cismale participants, the lower starting point for women and marginalized participants resulted in a lower ending point. Design decisions across controller iterations privilege cismale experiences, reifying gamer identity through controller design and resulting in not just an ideal gamer identity, but an ideal gamer body. </p>